I couldn’t stop thinking about how Lizzie would have looked hanging in the woods. Did she even look like Lizzie anymore? I wanted to track down the hikers who found her so I could ask them exactly what it had been like to find her, but their names weren’t in the news. Probably so they wouldn’t have to talk to people like me.
“How’s your car been running?” my dad asked, trying to pull me into conversation.
“Fine.”
“No more issues?”
“Not really.”
I didn’t want to talk about my car. I wanted to talk about something that mattered, like why Lizzie chose to hang herself. It was supposed to be a really painful way to die. Since they’d found her, I’d done a lot of reading online. Had she done research too?
I couldn’t shake the idea that she could have changed her mind—but she didn’t. She made a decision and stuck with it. I guess she knew that if she could get through a bit more pain, then all the pain would end forever.
What if someone had stopped her? What if Enzo had woken up that night and followed her? Maybe Lizzie would have only put her suicide off until a later date. On the other hand, maybe he would have convinced her how much she had to live for. Not that Enzo was particularly great at dealing with tense situations.
What if I had been there? If I had just ten minutes with Lizzie, I could have told her how loved she was. That whatever she was going through would pass. That there was help out there, if only she was willing to ask for it. Lizzie would have probably looked at me and said, “Little Creely, you should take your own advice.”
“Why don’t we all say what we’re thankful for this year?” my mom suggested.
That pulled me out of my thoughts and made the rest of the table go silent.
“No one really wants to do that, Mom,” Rush said.
“Don’t be silly. It’ll be good for all of us.”
“What if we’re not thankful for anything?” I asked.
“Come on, Thorny,” Connor said, “It’s not all bad.”
“Lizzie Lovett is dead.”
“You hardly even knew her,” he replied.
I could feel my family go still, probably because they’d all been thinking it but hadn’t dared to say so.
“I wanted to know her though.”
“No, you didn’t,” Connor said. “You wanted to know the werewolf version of her.”
I looked around the table at my family. “I guess I’m thankful that someone I know will actually be blunt with me.”
“Is that what you want?” my mom asked.
It wasn’t about what I wanted. It was about what I deserved. But I didn’t know how to say that, so I went back to poking at my turkey and listening to my dad talk about how he was thankful for his family and that we were safe and healthy and happy—for the most part.
? ? ?
I’d thought doing research on suicide would make me feel better. That I’d find some answers or at least gain an understanding of what Lizzie was going through. But I’d read everything I could find about death by hanging and didn’t feel any closer to the truth. All I’d managed to do was fill my head with enough gruesome information to last a lifetime.
The worst thing I read was that when a person hangs themselves, they’re making a statement. It’s not fast or painless. It’s not a cry for help. They’re trying to punish themselves or the person who finds them.
I didn’t know if that was true, but it made me shudder. Why would Lizzie have wanted to punish herself? Why did she choose to end her life in such an agonizing way?
After Thanksgiving dinner, while my family and Connor were downstairs eating pumpkin pie, I hid in my room and thought about what it must be like to die, to make the decision to die, to know the exact time it was going to happen, to feel as if the pain of death didn’t compare to the pain of living.
A colorful scarf was sitting on my desk, the scarf left behind by one of the hippies. I picked it up and tied a slip knot, another thing I’d learned while researching. I walked to the mirror and looked at myself. Pale, plain, dark circles under my eyes. I looked as dead as Lizzie. I put the scarf around my neck.
I reached behind me and tightened the noose, just to enough to be uncomfortable. Then I pulled it tighter. It surprised me that I could still breathe just fine. I expected to feel my throat closing, pushing all the air out of my body, but it wasn’t like that at all. Instead, my head started to throb, pulsing in tune with my heartbeat. A warm tingly sensation started behind my eyes, and I got dizzy.
Then my door opened, and Rush leaned in, saying, “Hey, Mom wants to know if—what the fuck are you doing?”
I tore the scarf from my neck, and there was a sudden jolt in my head. “Nothing. Keep your voice down.”
He strode into my room. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I wasn’t trying to do anything. I just wanted to see what it was like.” I rubbed at my neck. It felt sore, and I hoped I hadn’t held the scarf tight enough to leave a mark.
Rush’s voice still seemed very loud. “This isn’t a game.”
“I know. I was just curious. Please don’t say anything to Mom and Dad.”
I could feel a headache starting. Was it from the scarf or the stress of my brother walking in at the worst possible moment?